Thin Callouses

Yesterday, as I ran a race, I backed down from the pain. The weather had suddenly turned hot and I probably hadn't taken that enough into account. A quick start and a few days of questionable training made me mentally weak. I walked a bit in mile two, then at several water stops. I ran the rest of the remainder of the race pretty comfortably. I was feeling like I hadn't prepped well. I'd neglected to eat my usual pre-race banana and neihter had I had the tea with honey that I usually drink to load my body with sugars for energy. Additionally, I may have been hit with a low-grade digestive problem, having needed to visit the toilet 5 times for in the 14 hours prior to the race.

I felt a bit off and seeing a family who had spread a picnic on their front yard, asked if I might have some orange juice. They immediately said, "Yes." I'd picked up the juice container and one of them handed me a cup. I poured a half cup and downed it in an instant. It seemed to help, though by that time, it was going to help in my second race more than my first. I made it a point to get a half bagel and banana to help replenish my stores of sugars.

The upshot of all this was that I ran a 51:10 10K followed by a 24:11 5K. Neither a time I can brag about. In running my post-mortem on this race, I realized that my problem lay either with poor preparation (not having my usual pre-race sugars and/or neglecting the effects of heat on pacing) or with not having done enough racing and thus my ability to withstand the discomfort of racing was diminished. Most likely it was a combination of both. The title of this post refer to the latter, something I've heard referred to as race callousing, the ability to better tolerate pain because you've experienced it recently (and perhaps severely) and thus, built up a psychological callous which allows you to better tolerate it.